August 23, 2012

Maastricht, Maastricht, Limburg, The Netherlands

On Friday 24 August 2012 at 15.30, an inscription was unveiled by Mayor Hoes in the presence of the administration of the province Limburg, the chief rabbi of the Dutch Jewish community and a delegation of Jews from Limburg in a wall of the HBS (high school) in the Prof. Pieter Willem Str .39 Maastricht.

Exactly 70 years earlier, on 24 August 1942, about 600 Jews scattered throughout the province Limburg received from the Dutch police a summation to report the following day, 25 August, 1942, at the school in the Prof. Pieter Willem Street 39 in Maastricht.
About 300 Jews from across the province reported. The others were apparently already in hiding or had fled. In the late evening of 25 August, at midnight, these 300 had to walk under police escort through the Prof. Roerschstraat to the railway station nearby. A train was waiting to bring them to the Westerbork transit camp where they spent a few days after which they were transported to extermination camp Auschwitz.

(It should be mentioned here that from these 300 deportees, only 8 survived! JMK)